At some point in our lives, we will come across a hard drive that has failed, causing a scare of losing all of our irreplaceable personal data, including those memorable pictures accumulated over the years.  However, with the correct backup plan, a failed hard drive could be something you will never have to fear.  These are backup options:

​

• Back up locally with an external hard drive, USB flash drive or on media disks: If you have an external USB hard drive, you can just back up your files using the operating system's built-in backup feature.  PROS: This method is cheap and fast. CONS: If your external hard drive is stolen, lost or damaged, you could lose your data

​

• Back up using a Cloud Service: If you want to make sure your files stay safe, you can back them up over the internet using services such as Dropbox and Google Drive, or a similar cloud storage service. PROS: Easy, fast and in many cases free for a small amount of storage.  CONS: Most only offer a few gigabytes of space for free, so if you want to back up a large number of files, you will have to pay for extra storage

​

• Back up using online software: Similar to using a cloud service, there are tools out there that are more suitable to backing up a larger number of files for a cheaper fee.  Some of these tools include BackBlaze, MozyHome and Acronis .  Even though these tools use the internet for storage like the cloud service, these tools are set up to automatic backup files and usually run in the background so you hardly notice it.  PROS: Easy one time set up with the luxury of saving larger backups for a cheaper fee.  CONS: Since these tools are automatically syncing to your PC, deleting a file on your PC could delete the file from your backup storage.

​

​